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Friendship Born at Harvard Goes on to White House

Jocelyn Frye, who has been a friend of Michelle Obama since law school, has become Mrs. Obamas policy and projects director.Credit
Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — At Harvard Law School, they supported student demands for more professors of color, savored countless episodes of “The Cosby Show” and “L.A. Law,” and dreamed about how two idealistic black women might make their mark. Their legal careers took them to separate cities, but they never lost touch.

Jocelyn Frye became a passionate proponent of affirmative action and workplace equity and an advocate for women and families in Washington. Michelle Obama became a community organizer and a hospital executive committed to eliminating health care barriers for the poor in Chicago.

Two decades later, the old friends are back together, this time in the White House. Ms. Frye is now the first lady’s policy and projects director, helping Mrs. Obama develop a policy platform and a presence in this city.

Mrs. Obama, of course, dominates the spotlight. But Ms. Frye has emerged as an influential, behind-the-scenes adviser, helping to hone Mrs. Obama’s emerging policy agenda even as she also counsels the president on some domestic policy matters. (Ms. Frye, who also works for President Obama’s domestic policy team, was granted a waiver to work for the administration despite rules that ban the employment of lobbyists.)

An advocate steeped in contentious workplace issues might not seem like a natural choice for a first lady who is trying to steer clear of controversy. Ms. Frye’s supporters and adversaries, though, describe her as pointed, but soft-spoken; passionate, but rarely partisan, with a knack for defusing the rancor around hot-button issues.

She is married to a Republican political consultant, Brian Summers, who campaigned for former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas in the Republican presidential primary race. (“We don’t talk much about politics,” said Ms. Frye, who is 45 and a Democrat. “Nothing good could come of it.”)

And she and Mrs. Obama share a passion for policies that affect women and families, and an easy camaraderie born of many late-night, heart-to-heart talks at Harvard. In law school, “they could almost finish each other sentences,” said Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard law professor and mentor to Ms. Frye and Mrs. Obama.

“You’ll see Michelle Obama’s face on the issues,” Professor Ogletree said, “but you better believe that the commitment behind it also comes from Jocelyn Frye by her side.”

Ms. Frye’s fingerprints are already visible on the first lady’s fledgling policy initiatives.

She helped Lilly Ledbetter prepare a speech for the first lady’s first public event — a White House reception that celebrated the enactment of a pay-equity law. (The law was named after Ms. Ledbetter, a supervisor at a Goodyear tire plant in Alabama, who for decades was paid less than her male counterparts.)

Ms. Frye identified some of the community institutions here visited by Mrs. Obama — Mary’s Center, a health clinic that serves immigrants; Howard University, a historic black college; and Miriam’s Kitchen, a nonprofit group that feeds the homeless. (A native Washingtonian, Ms. Frye has taken the lead in helping the Obamas integrate themselves into this city.)

She has also supported Mrs. Obama’s decision to promote the president’s legislative agenda, which raised some eyebrows since most first ladies have avoided discussing legislation.

Administration officials say the first lady will soon focus on the Serve America Act, a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would expand the number of public service volunteers eligible for minimal living expenses and modest educational stipends.

Melody C. Barnes, who directs the president’s Domestic Policy Council, described Ms. Frye’s work as crucial. “As we think about policy and legislation, she is a part of that conversation, thinking about ways the first lady’s work can be calibrated to support those efforts,” Ms. Barnes said.

Ms. Frye, who attended Mr. and Mrs. Obama’s wedding, never imagined that she might follow her friend into the Executive Mansion. She is the daughter of government workers — her mother worked for the Library of Congress and her father worked for military intelligence — who sacrificed to send her to private schools. She still lives in the predominantly black neighborhood where she grew up, just walking distance from the house she lived in as a girl.

She has been challenging authority on issues of gender and race since her days at Harvard, when she and others took over the dean’s office to draw attention to the lack of faculty diversity. Being part of government after so many years of challenging it will not be easy, some predicted.

But Verna Williams, who attended Harvard with Ms. Frye and Mrs. Obama, said Ms. Frye would be a truth-teller in the White House, someone who would never be so awed by her new perch that she would hesitate to speak her mind.

“You can’t get so caught up in this that you lose sight of real people and real problems,” said Ms. Frye, who described her first month in the White House as “a whirlwind.”

Indeed, a speech that Ms. Frye delivered last month suggested that she and the first lady might find a way to embrace some of her old causes by adopting the neutral, inclusive language Ms. Frye is known for.

At a University of Pittsburgh School of Law conference on the gender wage gap, Ms. Frye argued that the push to eliminate pay differences between men and women should no longer be viewed as controversial. Instead, she said, the effort should be considered an economic priority for struggling families, particularly as growing numbers of women become primary breadwinners with layoffs decimating industries dominated by men.

Ms. Frye was echoing a theme — linking pay equity to the economic wellbeing of families — that was first raised by her good friend, Mrs. Obama, at the Lilly Ledbetter reception.

“It’s much more than a gender issue,” said Ms. Frye, who emphasized she was not speaking for the White House. “It’s really an economic security issue.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A17 of the New York edition with the headline: Friendship Born at Harvard Goes On to White House. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe